Amen - Part Three: Superstition

Those who do not accuse me of blasphemy or stupidity for my statements about heaven and hell might nevertheless, if only out of superstition, accuse me of rashness: if the afterlife existed, and hell were not the tavern for revelry that you aspire to, don't you think they might burn you there precisely for what you've written?

The answer is simple, albeit not intuitive. I've read the New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul of Tarsus to early Christian communities. When big Paul the persecutor converted and was appointed head of the apostolic delegation for the Gentile area, he changed his coat but not his self-righteous habit: the requirements he set for going to heaven are as bizarre as they are strict. I take good care not to meet them, and if such a parallel reality really existed, I would end up straight off roasting at the "Churrascaria chez Satan".
That would be the fate of someone with my lifestyle, my values, and my beliefs. It would be so even if between now and the last of my days I set about writing hypocritical ass-kissing pieces to the entire ecclesiastical establishment.
For this very reason, since they would await me in hell anyway, it would be to my advantage to make friends with the managers of that place. Maybe they'd reserve a less burning corner for me, where I would continue to sing the praises of the host.
Who knows? I might even become the official court propagandist. Not bad for someone who, to avoid heavenly boredom, is ready to risk ending up impaled on a spit for eternity. Right?

You can read the entire "Amen" saga by following this link.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

To serve and be served

Not all jobs are the same. It is one thing to work, another to work and serve.
Mind you, when I say "serve" I do not mean generically "serving customers", I mean actually acting momentarily and voluntarily as their servant, performing actions for them that they could otherwise handle on their own: bringing coffee, cleaning the table, shining shoes, washing hair, cutting nails, delivering a pizza.
It is not something to be taken for granted. It is an enormous kindness rendered by the person serving you, something that goes far beyond the ordinary duties of any other type of job with equivalent pay. It takes human qualities and dedication to do it well, with kindness and dignity.
I sometimes forget this, but I have made a commitment to always keep it in mind. When the gesture is performed with grace and the recipient becomes aware of it - pausing for a moment the flow of thoughts, the conversation with friends, or the message they were writing - an exchange of specific signals takes place that both parties pick up. The intensity of the interaction steps up a level, and even the coffee takes on a richer flavor.
If you have never tried it, do so. You won't regret it.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Amen - Part Two: The Closing Argument

Someone might have thought that my reflections on paradise and hell (which you can find by following this link) are blasphemous, or perhaps utter nonsense: completely unfounded foolishness.
Objection, Your Honor. To clear up any sort of misunderstanding, I call none other than the Bible to testify, yes, that very book in flesh and bone, or rather, in paper and ink.
Like all great literature, the Book of Genesis opens "in media res," with God—all alone for who knows how long, suffocated by boredom—falling prey to a compulsive creationism, which sets the history of the world in motion. 
The world itself, however, being so inanimate, doesn't save Him from tedium. So, using recycled materials, just like any smart kid does to cure that annoying state of mind, He builds Himself a little toy: man. Then He plants the Garden of Eden and drops him right in.
Man, however, is a bit like me; he would have preferred to be born in hell, where he surely would have had a blast. Instead, he finds himself in that wonderful place that looks a bit like Switzerland or Singapore: he stands there dazed for a few moments, admiring its splendor, but when the "wow" effect wears off, he starts getting seriously bored out of his mind.
God, who has few rivals in the world when it comes to empathy—partly because He is the only one in the world—notices this: as you may recall, He had gone through the exact same thing shortly before. So He creates animals for him, but the trick turns out to be a total flop: man plays with them briefly and then grows tired of them.
God then tries again by generating woman. This trick, in its own way, also has to do with a hole, but it is certainly not a flop. And this time, man approves. The woman sparks his curiosity and tempts him to break the prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The two rascals, taking a cue from the advice of a supposed talking snake, eat the symbolic apple, thus setting off down the fantastic epistemological path that we have never abandoned since. 

The touchy guy, however, discovers them, flies into a rage, and banishes them to the underworld.
So, to sum up: in paradise everyone tends to get bored to death, landlord included. As soon as they try to entertain themselves a little—screwing, snooping around, raising doubts, and asking uncomfortable questions—they are invited to head down to hell, which is evidently a place much better suited to that kind of activity.
Now, taking into consideration this source above any possible suspicion, you tell me, Esteemed Members of this Most Illustrious Jury: when I stated that hell would be a more interesting place than paradise, where was I wrong?

You can read the entire "Amen" saga by following this link.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Natural born vendactors

I'm watching a girl selling flowers on the street. She spots a young couple and Launches herself at them, waving a bouquet of roses. On her face she wears the most radiant, happy, and piercing smile you've ever seen.
As soon as she realizes the couple isn't going to buy, that smile vanishes, just like that, suddenly, leaving no trace on a face that immediately reconfigured into a grumpy expression carved in marble.
With every new pair of potential clients, the ritual of swapping "masks" repeats itself. Such a sharp change from one extreme setting to the other, so sudden and distinct that you wouldn't be able to tell which of the two "moods" the girl identifies with.
How the fuck do they do it?
Born sales-actors.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Amen

I don't count on it much, but if the afterlife really existed, between heaven and hell I would choose the latter.
It must be a place full of souls that have fun, chat, yell, drink, smoke, get high, fuck, dance, sing, read irreverent literature, listen to tempting music, think, doubt, cry tears of emotion, laugh with delight.
Fire does not scare me, it's just a symbol: it represents warmth, joy, dance, love.
How about heaven instead? What a drag that must be. Those ashen faces, the haughty smiles, the straw-white skirts. The sad, political victim like look of the doorman, good old Peter, would be enough to sink me into the most oppressing form of depression.
Honestly, I prefer the carnival style, the cheekiness and the mocking grin of Satan.
P.S. I almost forgot: Amen!

Constitutional dynamism

I didn't vote in the constitutional reform referendum. I was abroad and actually glad to have a good excuse not to take part in yet another buck-passing farce orchestrated by our disastrous politicians. Petty folks who, due to personal limitations and partisan bias, fail to find agreement on fundamental issues, reducing everything to the usual polarized brawl and condemning the country to institutional collapse. I won't get my hands burned with the hot potatoes that these mediocre incompetents cannot handle and instead pass on to the citizens.
If I had voted, I might have chosen no. Not for the fluff reasons put forward by the opposition, which is just as guilty on the matter as the majority, but out of awareness of my inadequacy in tackling a question unsuited for non-experts.
On the other hand, I really didn't like the reasoning (if you can call it reasoning) of those who proposed voting no because our constitution is a perfect, infallible, and eternal creation that therefore must not be touched. Ever. Regardless. But where do these people live, in a glass bell?
First of all, the founding fathers, aware that their work was only the beginning, wisely included a modification mechanism. So whoever is aprioristically opposed to constitutional reforms should at least have the guts to take it out on the very people they pretend to praise.
Secondly, the original charter is framed within a specific historical moment. The world changes constantly, and over the last century it has done so at a dizzying pace. To think that a constitution drafted at the end of the war could withstand, unchanged and monolithic, geopolitical, technological, and social upheavals like those of recent decades is mind-boggling.
Take the opening as an example: Italy is a democratic republic founded on labor. Aside from the fact that it has never been clear to me why specifically on labor? Why not on dignity, or self-fulfillment, or the social and cultural development of individuals? But anyway, let's suppose that back then, between monarchy and republic, with the country to rebuild, a bit of motivational propaganda could fit. However, do you think that today, when anyone risks being replaced at work by new technologies, an article like that can still make sense? Meaning Italy should be a republic founded on the work done by Gemini or R2-D2?
And this is just one example. Many of the articles could prove inadequate to continuous change. The constitution is not a besieged fortress to be defended. It is a tool that must be consistent with the current national and international situation. If this changes and the charter is no longer adequate, modifications become necessary. But certain people parrot, moreover by shouting, slogans that have no meaning whatsoever, without even questioning the legitimacy of what they are saying.
Disarming, really, disappointing and extremely depressing.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Between profane psychology and practical philosophy

When we've had a disagreement with someone, we usually tend to write the matter off by declaring: "Oh, it's entirely their fault, come on, that's obvious!" Without taking into account the fact that, naturally, that's also what the other person thinks of us.
The problem is that sooner or later our subconscious, after ruminating on the issue behind the scenes, comes out into the open and tells us: "Yes, but actually, I could have given a different answer too, or avoided saying that thing, or looked for some common ground." This realization arrives suddenly, long after the events, when we haven't thought about it explicitly for ages. And it hits us in a dazing way.
I have come to the conclusion that it is better to do the exact opposite of what our instinct suggests. At the very moment when we have written off the matter internally, blaming the other person unconditionally, it's better to add: "Yes, okay, their faults are clear, there's no need to harp on them, but now try to find some flaws in YOUR behavior as well." And in no time at all, you immediately find two or three circumstances that you didn't handle in the best way.
At that point, it is possible to seek a reconciliation. Or at least avoid taking a right hook to the jaw from the subconscious a few weeks later.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Borrowing from abstract art

These are two very famous abstract art paintings.
I'm not an art expert and I'm not gonna talk about art here. Yet I find art an extremely good tool to visually convey counter intuitive ideas, even those that have nothing to do with the artworks themselves.
I will use Kandinsky's "Composition VII" (the first one) to represent reality. Rothko's "No. 4, two dominants" (the second one) on the other hand can be thought to represent a polarized simplification of that same reality.
Now imagine trying to understand the complexity inherent in the first representation by using the second one as a model. Ridiculous, right?
Worse still, consider how stupid it would be to operate on the complex reality by using the polarized model.
Well, as absurd as it may seem, that is what many of us do every day, when it comes to pretty much everything we can think of.
In my opinion this is one of the main tragedies of our times.

Anachronistic short circuit

There is a question that has been plaguing me for a long time. Why in Italy, so many years after the key events, are there still so many people who identify with the clash between fascists and anti-fascists? Why hasn't the anachronism of the debate's themes relegated the debaters to history books as well?
An answer could be formulated by drawing a parallel with genetics.
When the collective trauma caused by a social divide is too damaging, when the events exceed the limit of human management capacity, the scarring mechanism that usually takes care of making us turn the page and letting current events ferment into history fails. It simply does not kick in. The wound does not heal, the trauma remains, the social divide itself is not repaired, and the edges of the torn flesh remain apart.
Well, this is the result, but how does the flow work? Just as the genetic makeup of parents is passed on to their children, the polarizations in question—the "serious" ones, unlike those that have been defused—are mistakenly transmitted from one generation to the next along with "healthy" cultural traits. Let us remember, to stay within the realm of genetics, that even the DNA propagation mechanism can make mistakes.
Membership in the opposing groups of a certain era, which normally loses value when history moves to the next chapter, is perpetuated in these extreme cases. This happens not only in the parent->child direction, but also in the teacher->student, elderly->young, group->individual, guru->follower direction and so on.
A side effect of the ongoing process, which also becomes the driving force of a self-feeding feedback loop, is the concrete fact that those who have been absorbed by one of the two groups openly declare that they belong to it and thus find themselves facing individuals who equally effectively belong to the "enemy" camp. And they therefore feel justified in continuing to fight their battles. It is an illusory war, like that of the Japanese soldiers who remained lying in wait in the Philippine forests decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Illusory in its motives, but real in its concreteness. Basically, it is an actual division but one no longer supported by the historical foundations that generated and sustained it.
Fascism and anti-fascism, despite having had no historical motivation for a long time, are seen as necessary movements precisely because people have not stopped representing them. That is, they make no sense and make sense at the same time.
The solution to the snag, which is commonly thought to be political, or even worse military, should instead be sought in the toolkits of other disciplines: sociology and psychology. The opposition is a real group pathology, which like any pathology should not be debated, but rather cured.
Why would it be important to cure it? First of all because, like any physiological problem, it causes dysfunctional consequences. Furthermore, finding ourselves evidently on the verge of an epochal change on which all available energy should be concentrated, hoping it is enough, it represents a very dangerous element of distraction from the fundamental objectives of a country system.
Obviously I do not believe at all that we will be able to become aware, wake up, and get out of this dream set in the past to face the challenges of the present. I fear instead that the beatings dealt by such challenges will force us into a very traumatic awakening.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

Children

Every now and then you happen to read about parents who commit suicide and take their children with them to the afterlife. These are clearly extremisms, hallucinations, madness.
However, these pathologies disguise a tendency that is instead very widespread, so widespread that it seems normal, when in fact it is not normal at all: parenthood experienced as a sense of possession. Indeed, of property.
From the moment they are born, your children are and will forever remain your children. In the sense that they are your children rather than someone else's, not in the sense that they belong to you. "Your" in this case is an adjective, not a pronoun, for those who still refer to grammar.
No one belongs to anyone. This fundamental right of the individual also applies to the parent-child relationship. Your children therefore belong only to themselves, you are there to guide them in the best possible way to adulthood. The best way for them, not for you.
One notices on the part of various parents a continuous interference in the instinctive life of their children, the one that should lead them to fulfill themselves as individuals, as human uniqueness. I am not talking about interference in terms of safety or civic education, where it is even fine, indeed desirable, but rather on actual matters of PREFERENCE. And this is an unacceptable intrusion. Moreover, once they become adults, the children will throw these acts of arrogance back in their parents' faces. And obviously they will be right.
In some families it even works the other way around: do whatever you want, go wherever you want, come back whenever you want, use the web however you want, hang out with whoever you want, don't break my balls, but please, take the classical high school and law school, because art school and philosophy are stuff for slackers, and I want to have a child with a "respectable" job, otherwise what do I tell people? They might even be respected, perhaps, but in contexts a bit different from those expected, of the type "I kiss your hands..." or "bro, let's break his bones..."
My brother and I grew up in a humble and healthy environment, rural and artisanal origins, pre-industrial traditions adapted to modernity. We were raised with reasonable rules, presence, discretion. Firmness and flexibility were measured out with one eye on safety and the other on respect. For essential decisions, we were not given mandatory orders: it was enough to pass us good quality DNA and essential guidelines (call them "values" if you like).
The degrees of freedom made available to me have sometimes offered me the opportunity to do some stupid things, but the basic guidelines have helped me understand and straighten my course.
To someone my lifestyle might even seem like a mess, but it is MY lifestyle and I am completely at ease with it: I shaped it for myself thanks to the respect my parents had for my choices, even when they were not in line with their visions or expectations. This precisely because they always thought of me as their son, not as their property.
I will always be grateful to them for this: I realize that many people have not had the same luck.

This post was machine-translated from Italian.

The advice - EXPLICIT CONTENT!

A long long time ago—I was just a kid and still went to the beach with my parents—I was sitting in the small courtyard of a guesthouse in Romagna, where all the guests gathered with the owners before and after meals.
The situation was always dynamic: suddenly everyone could disappear, and it would happen that you found yourself sitting next to a guy you didn't know.
That evening, one of those guys–an adult–looked me up and down and solemnly said to me: "Don't listen to them, they'll try to tell you a bunch of bullshit. Don't pay attention to them. In life, whenever you get the chance, fu-ck, fu-CK, FU-CK!"
All in a crescendo. Then quiet again, a shadow, forever. It seemed as though an oracle had possessed him, just long enough to give me that directive, only to leave him back to his mild life as a Lombard accountant on vacation in Romagna.
I was dumbfounded. I was a bright kid, but rather awkward and confused in that area. I was just then beginning to break free from the yoke of ecclesiastical indoctrination.
Perhaps he was simply a sex-obsessed creep, I mean, deep down, just an ordinary person. Over time, however, I came to interpret his initiative as the courageous gesture of a man who realized too late the deception of which he himself had been a victim, and who was trying to warn a young person against coordinated attacks on his natural impulses. He was talking about sex, a great marketing lever, but he was generally referring to inhibitions, feelings of guilt, insecurities, and social conditioning.
If that's the case, no one has ever given me better advice since.
It took me quite a while to figure it out.
And I still haven't fully grasped it!

This post was machine-translated from Italian.